slant had been running poorly, really loud ticking, loss of power, rough idle, etc... monday i opened the valve cover to see what was up, and rod for intake #5 was bent pretty bad. i couldn't think what caused this, i haven't revved the motor past 3500 rpm, haven't had any backfires since break-in. (the dist was 180* out, couple of pops till we figured that one out...)
i swapped it out for a spare i had, reset lash, restarted engine... runs just as poor. it's my daily driver, so...
tuesday after shop class i went to my friends house, pulled the valve cover, and took a closer look. seems that rods are tweaked, not pretzled though, on #1 #2 and #3!!!
the engine is recently built with milled head, big cam, stiff springs, offy intake, headers.
my best guess is that the springs are too stiff? i had some posts recently about valve lash, maybe i had it too tight once?
i'm stumped
ps, where can i get new pushrods? besides pick n pull?